What kind of message does the appointment of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* parliamentary group leader Sampo Terho to minster of culture, sport and European affairs send? Does it strengthen our Nordic welfare state values or does it drive a wedge between us? Does it expose our denial of racism and bigotry in this country?

If there is a government that has done great harm to our welfare state and our Nordic values it is without any doubt Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government. Apart from targeting the most vulnerable sectors of our society like single mothers, the unemployed and marginalized, the government’s inhuman and obsessive policies have targeted asylum seekers, migrants and minorities.

This isn’t a government that has only tightened laws like family reunification and caused the number of undocumented migrants to soar, but has declared war on our ever-growing culturally diverse society as well.

Spearheading this hostility is the PS party, which has built its political campaign on anti-migration and especially anti-Islam rhetoric.

The new minister of culture, Terho, is no common politician but one that has built his political career and worldview on racist ideology that will end up undermining our Nordic welfare state and values.

Apart from being minister of culture, Terho is the chairman of the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity, an association whose main task is to exclude non-white Finns and minorities from being treated as equal members of society.

In 2007, the new minister of culture published a eugenics-spirited essay dividing humans into three racial groups (Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasian) on the different races of the world and how the white Europeans were going to become a minority in the face of non-European migrants.

He claimed in the article that the European population of Africans will grow three-fold by 2050, This will cause the following to happen, according to Terho:

White Europeans are a shrinking minority in the world and in Europe;

Terho asks what we can learn in the face of our shrinking population and low birth rates when looking at other parts of the world;

He compares the situation of white Europeans to “Mongoloid” groups like Native Americans, which were the victims of genocide by white Europeans;

The same matter that is going on in Europe – according to Terho’s – is happening with the white USAmerican population due to blacks and Mexicans;

He stated that Africa and Asia solve their overpopulation issues by sending such people to Europe “as refugees, migrants, adoptees etc;”

Terho stresses that “the cold hard fact” is that white Europeans are going to become marginalized in their own continent due to Africans and other non-white European minorities;

Terho concludes in the essay: “Accepting these facts [of becoming a minority and marginalized in Europe] doesn’t make you a race hater or racist against other groups, but our strong culture of political correctness should not hinder us from talking about this [matter].”

Yes, what you read was published ten years ago by Finland’s new minister of education, sport and European issues.

If far-right Islamophobe Marine Le Pen is what happens in a country like France when you try to meet racism in the middle, the Finnish version of the latter is the PS and embedded in its most visible politicians like Timo Soini, Jussi Halla-aho, Terho, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola, Laura Huhtasaari, Maria Lohela, Tom Packalén and many, many others.

“So who is to blame for the rise and rise of Le Pen and the FN? The conventional wisdom says that mainstream French politicians allowed the far right to win votes by letting them monopolize the issue of immigration. The reverse is, in fact, the case: Over the past four decades, both the center-right Republicans and center-left Socialists went out of their way to try and co-opt the xenophobic rhetoric and policies of the Le Pens, which only emboldened — and normalized — both father and daughter.”

The same happened in Finland up to the historic victory of the PS in the parliamentary elections of 2011, when the anti-immigration and anti-EU party was able to raise the number of MPs to 39 from just 5 previously.

Taking on board the PS and giving them a near-free hand in tightening immigration policy and seeing the lights of politicians like Terho as ministers is a rude blow to our values and reveals our denial to the problem.

The PS and like-minded politicians from other parties do nothing more than undermine our values and institutions.

* The official translation to Finnish of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is the Finns Party. In our opinion, it is not only a horrible translation, but one that is misguided. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Such terms like the Finns Party of True Finns promote as well in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and thereafter the acronym PS.